When I accepted the call to Elmbrook Church almost 20 years ago, I wondered what my first series of messages would be. I knew what I wanted to say, but I didn't know quite where I would base it in Scripture. After I'd given some thought to it, I decided that what I really wanted to try to convey to this new fellowship of which I was now a part was what the church is all about. And so we did a study together on Acts 2.

Now I'm about to complete 20 years of ministry in this church, if I survive the next three months. And what I would like to do for these last three months of this 20 year period is Acts 2 to find out how we're doing.

As we look in Acts 2, we have this story of what happened on the day of Pentecost. For the sake of time, I won't read that to you in detail because we'll be going into it on numerous occasions. But let me remind you: what happened was on the day of Pentecost, shortly after the Lord Jesus had ascended back into heaven. The disciples were waiting. They knew they were waiting for something. They had an idea of what he was, but they weren't altogether sure.

The Lord Jesus had told them to stay in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high. So somehow or other they knew they were going to be clothed with power from on high, and when they were, that that power would equip the church to go fulfill the mandate that the Lord Jesus had given them, which was to go into all the world, preach the gospel, and make disciples in all nations. Now that was a gargantuan task given to a handful of people, no more than 120.

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them. There were many extraordinary evidences of his coming upon them. We don't need to spend a lot of time on that this evening, but the result was that a great crowd of people gathered around because they were intrigued by the phenomena of this small group of people being filled with Spirit. Some of them mocked and said, "These guys are drunk!"

Peter, however, with rare good humor, said, "Now folks, they're not drunk. It's not even opening time yet." And he launched into a sermon. This brings me to the first thing that I want to talk about in this series on the church, and it is the importance of preaching.

When you look at the church of Jerusalem, it is an inescapable fact that the church of Jerusalem was founded on the preaching of the Word. Now it will come as no surprise to you that I am absolutely convinced that the church of Jesus Christ is built on the preaching of the Word. That is not to suggest that there are not many other aspects to church life. There certainly and emphatically are. But undergirding it all there must be the exposition of God's Word.

John Stott said recently in England, "Nothing is more important for the life and health of the church than biblical preaching …. Churches live, grow, and flourish by the Word of God."

Now then, with that as our starting point, let me talk to you from this passage of Scripture on the importance of preaching. I must freely admit to you that not everybody shares my view of the importance of preaching. Certainly many of the people not in church do not share my view. They wouldn't walk across the street to listen to a preacher.

In fact, the very word preaching has fallen on hard times. I checked in a couple dictionaries to find out what the dictionary definition of preaching was, and they gave the standard one, but they also gave a secondary one. Webster's dictionary defines preaching as "to discourse on moral or religious topics, especially in a tiresome manner." The Chambers dictionary gives this definition: "To give advice in an offensive, tedious, or obtrusive way." Now it's very helpful for us to realize that is a not uncommon perception of preaching. It's not new either.

In 1857, Anthony Trollope, who wrote a well-known book called Barchester Towers, said this: "There is perhaps no greater hardship inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons." So as somebody whose occupation is clearly very, very hazardous, I want to stand firm at this point and say that whatever people think about it, I'm still convinced that preaching plays a crucial role in the well-being of the church.

Having said that, however, I am in touch enough to know that there are some real objections to preaching. One of them, of course, is this: in our democratic society, where everybody feels that they have the freedom to their own opinion, it sticks in people's craws to have one person stand up and tell them what they should think. "Who does he think he is? Don't you tell me what I should be doing. Everybody should be free to believe what they want to believe." The response of course that we give to that is that we fully understand.

However, we have to accept the fact that in all free societies, there has to be an element of authority. There is no such thing as freedom without some degree of authority. And the unique authority of preaching is not to be found in an egotistical person who feels that he or she has the right to ram his or her ideas down somebody else's throat. The authority of preaching stands in the authoritative Word of God. And the task of the preacher is to unfold God's authoritative Word.

Now granted, people should be free to believe what they want to believe. However, the preacher believes that he should at least give them the chance to believe what God's authoritative Word has to say.

The second objection that is quite common today is this: people will say that modern communication theory points out that there are lots of different ways of learning, and that the lecture is probably the worst way of learning. We learn by listening. We learn by discussing. We learn by watching. We learn by experimenting and discovering. To which the preacher would reply, "Amen." We certainly do. That is why in the church of Jesus Christ we don't just ask people to come and listen to preaching. We give opportunities for people not only to listen, which is clearly one way of learning, but also we give them opportunities of gathering where they can discuss.

Not only that, we fully recognize that people are visually oriented, and we want to give them things to see—not least, lives lived that are living epistles. Not least, a community of believers that exhibits love and concern. And certainly we agree that people learn through discovering and through doing, and that's why we constantly remind people that church is not somewhere you go; the church is something you are. And if you are not engaged in a ministry, not only are you missing out on your Christian privilege and ability, but you are denying yourself the opportunity to learn as well. So we accept these criticisms. We fully understand the objections to preaching, and we press on regardless, for we are convinced that it has an important place.

I'm firmly convinced of this: the uniqueness of preaching is found in the fact that we have here God's inspired Word. That when someone stands up to preach or teach they are actually claiming to be God's anointed servant. That as the people gather to hear God's Word, they are doing so in the belief that God's Spirit is in their midst, and they are coming with their hearts prepared and open to hear what God has to say to them. That being the case, you have a unique listening experience. Preaching in that sense is unlike any other communication experience. And we stand firmly on the importance of preaching. Well, I trust that you get the idea.

Now then, let's look into this passage of Scripture and ask ourselves some very simple questions and try to find some answers.

The first question is: what exactly is preaching? Some people seem to think that preaching is teaching, only louder. Well, that may be the case. But I don't think necessarily that is an adequate definition of preaching.

I looked into this sermon of Peter's, the first Christian sermon in the unique sense of being part of the church of Jesus Christ, and I noticed a number of things, which I've listed for you here, that gave me a clue as to what preaching is. Notice for instance in verse 14 it says this: "Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd. 'Fellow Jews and all of you who are in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say.' "

Now there are a number of clues there to answer the question of what exactly is preaching. It is not superfluous for us to notice that this passage of Scripture points out that Peter didn't just stand up on his own, saying, "Well, hey guys, this is what I think." No, Peter very carefully stood up with the Eleven. Now if you remember the Eleven immediately prior to this had been Twelve, but they lost one of their number. If you check carefully, for instance in Matthew 10, you will notice that the Lord Jesus commissioned the Twelve as they were then known, to do among other things, preach. And he said as he sent them out, "As you go, preach."

Now the Lord Jesus had specially commissioned and anointed and appointed these twelve apostles and given them a message. When we preach today, there's a sense in which we are not standing up on our own and telling you what we think. There's a sense in which I stand before you—or whoever else is preaching—stands up before you with the Eleven. We stand with the apostle. We enunciate to you that which the Lord Jesus gave to his apostles, and if at any point we cease to preach the apostolic message, which was delivered by the Lord Jesus to the apostles for the universal church for all time, then we must be disciplined. On the other hand, if a preacher stands up with the Eleven and clearly and firmly exposits the apostolic message, that's preaching. He's not giving his own ideas. He is expounding the apostolic word.

Notice the second phrase here: He raised his voice and "addressed the crowd." This expression "addressed the crowd" is similar—in fact one word is identical—to verse four. Speaking of the Holy Spirit coming upon them and the extraordinary gifts as a result of it, it says all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. The word translated "enabled" is translated "addressed" in verse 14. The thing that those two statements have in common is this: they were given the power to speak forth. The power they were given to speak forth, we're told in verse 4, was the Holy Spirit.

So here we have the second clue as to what constitutes preaching. Preaching is somebody speaking forth the apostolic truth in the power of the Spirit. The word "speaking forth" could be translated "outspokenness." A preacher is somebody who on the authority of the apostolic word is, in the power of the Holy Spirit, outspoken. He is not apologetic.

The third thing that we learn about preaching is found in the expression "let me explain." This you'll find also in verse 14. Let me explain. Now in the Greek this expression is literarily "be it known unto you." In other words, preaching is intended to help people to know something they didn't know, or to know something they need to be reminded of, or to know something more thoroughly. In other words, preaching is addressing people in such a way that they are educated in the things of God. So if you listen to a sermon and you don't learn something about God, if you're not reminded of something about God, if something you know about God is not reinforced, that wasn't preaching. Whatever it was, it wasn't preaching.

Now fourthly, the expression that Peter uses, "listen carefully to what I say," is literally, "give attention to my words." Does that have a faint ring of Shakespeare about it? "'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,' I'll return them to you at the end of the service," sort of thing. In other words, preaching demands attention.

Now this is one of the problems for the modern preacher. Because we are visually oriented, and because we spend endless hours in front of the TV, and because we have gotten used to sound bites, and because we have to have the images changing every three or four seconds, the poor old preacher has a hard time demanding, getting, grabbing, holding, and keeping people's attention unless they cooperate.

And it's appropriate for the preacher to demand that attention because he is presenting the apostolic message in the power of his Spirit, and he is saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, listen to me. Give me your ears because this is important. Things are going to be said in these next few moments or this next interminable period of time—whichever way you look at it—which are of profound significance to you. Therefore, I ask for your cooperation, and I will do my best to hold your attention." So in other words, preaching should have some dynamism about it. It should be arresting. It should be gripping.

Fifthly, notice in verse 29 that Peter goes on to say, "I can tell you confidently." Now then, the word translated "confidently" here is used in a variety of ways in Scripture, and I've summarized this use of this word in other parts of Scripture in three words. It has the idea of being free. It has the idea of being frank. It has the idea of being fearless. Free, frank, and fearless.

In other words, the preacher should be able to stand up before the people to whom he or she is preaching and feel perfectly free about what he or she is going to say. They should feel perfectly free about being very frank about it. And they should be utterly fearless in the presentation of it. Why? Because it is apostolic. Because it is Holy Spirit inspired. Provided it stays within the confines of the basic principle of the exposition of Scripture, any preacher can be free and frank and fearless, and speak with great confidence.

It's fashionable not to be confident about things today in terms of what we believe. I was reading my good friend G. K. Chesterton last night, and this is what he said: "What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself but undoubting about the truth. This has been exactly reversed. Humble and self-forgetting, we must always be. But diffident and apologetic about the gospel, never."

In other words, there is a sense in which Chesterton is reminding us that as far as we ourselves are concerned, we should be full of doubts about our own ability, about our own convictions, about our own intellect, about our own capability, about how in the world are we going to get this across. We should be riddled with doubts. But as far as the message is concerned, there should be no doubt whatsoever. There should be a sense in which we are speaking with tremendous confidence.

Sixthly, Peter goes on to say in verse 36, "Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this." Now then, Peter is preaching in such a way—we've got to the end of his sermon now. Didn't take long, did it? We haven't got to his sermon. We're only looking at the way he's doing it. At the end of the sermon he says to them, "Be assured of this." The word "assured" is a very interesting word. It means "to lock up," and is used in other parts of Acts literally to describe how the disciples were sometimes locked up in jail. It has the idea of being locked up or secured. So the preaching is intended to bring people to a place of feeling utterly secure in that which is being communicated to them in such a way that they will feel total confidence in putting their trust in what is said.

To read part two of this workshop, click here.

Stuart Briscoe is minister-at-large of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and author of several books, including What Works When Life Doesn't (Howard Books).